9/08/2010

The Birthday Boy -- On His REAL Birthday!


Enjoying his blueberry muffin for his birthday breakfast

Happy Birthday to MEEE!  I'm ONE!
(look how he can point his finger and do "one")

It's MY birthday, and I can CRY IF I WANT TO!!!

But if you give me daddy, I'll stop :)

Mama's pretty sweet too.

Birthday Dinner at Salsa's - I'm One... I don't need no high chair

So what's been going on with Ryder in his twelfth month? (I showed JM twelfth and told him it looked weird, he swears up and down that's not how you spell it, even after I looked it up).

1. Wearing size 4 diapers.
2. Taking four 6 oz. bottles a day and 3 full meals of real food (not baby food).
3. He is not a picky eater, doesn't turn much down.
4. Waves bye bye.
5. Anytime a phone is in sight, real or fake, he immediately grabs it and puts it to his ear.
6. Something new - When he picks up the remote, he points it to the TV and says "Sih" like a hundred times in a row for Sid the Science Kid.  I guess this is because everytime we get ready to put the TV on for him, we say, "You want to watch Sid?"
7. Wears 12-18 month clothes and size 3 shoe.
8. Can squat down and stand up without holding on to anything, but is too afraid to take a step.  He will walk around with me while I hold one of his hands though.  But he sooo can walk alone, he's just being cautious.
9. Has four teeth -- two bottom and two top.
10. Is riding face forward in his car seat.
11. He likes to climb on top of anything in his reach.
12. He stares at everything and everyone when we are in public.
13. He is not afraid to go to anyone, he is a very friendly baby and always has been.
14. He does not have an attachment to anything, as in no security blanket, teddy bear, etc.
15. He has never taken a paci, except when he was a couple weeks old and we gave him one because we thought it would help him sleep better... and because that's just what we thought you were supposed to do.
16. He has said ba ba a few times for his bottle... this is new.
17. He pats me on the back when he's sleepy and layed up against me.
18. He really pays attention.  He has a small toy that whistles when you blow into it.  And John Michael always blows into this toy.  Just recently, Ryder will picked up any toy that looks similiar to it, and blows into it, just like he sees his daddy do.
19. When we went to the doctor Monday (you'll see why below), he was 32 inches long.  He was screaming too bad for me to remember to ask his weight.
20. His average night sleep schedule is 7:30 pm until 6:30 am.  On average during the day, he naps 9-11 am and 2-3 pm.  But from what I hear from other moms, he is about to drop that morning nap.

I haven't mentioned this, but on the day after Ryder's birthday party, he woke up breathing extremely heavy and fast.  And his little belly was moving up and down 90 to nothing.  We got the first appointment we could and found out he had an ear infection and they prescribed breathing treatments for the wheezing.  Day one of the breathing treatments looked something like this:  Pure Misery.

Day two went a little better.  I swear the minute he found out he could hold, a/k/a feel like he was in control of the machine, he was calm.  He might be a lil control freak like his daddy...Oh dear.

Ryder's very last bottle as a "month" baby.
As in, the last bottle before he turned ONE and is a "year" baby.

Wooooorrrrddd

That's some serious cellulite for such a teeny booty

We made our way to Starkville for the first home game of the season on Saturday.  It was the day before Ryder's party so Ryder and I just went for the day and left before the game started, and John Michael stayed for the game and came home afterwards.  Ryder did really well at the tailgate despite missing BOTH of his normal two hour naps.  That could've been a disaster, but it wasn't.  He was great.

For some reason I can't hear you.
Is the phone unplugged or something?

Chillin' in my new tailgate chair

Tailgating with the family


Today is the date of Ryder's birth. September 8. This past year John Michael and I have learned so much. We had no idea what it would be like to have a baby. Neither of us had ever really been around a baby for a long period of time, we had never even changed a single diaper until we changed Ryder's. We had never heard of putting your baby on a "schedule," we didn't know babies had to be fed every three hours, we didn't know babies could wake you up in the middle of the night, and we certainly didn't know babies would wake you up before 9 a.m! We didn't know you could practically pound on a baby's back to burp them as newborns, we didn't know little boys would spray you when the "ERR" hit them (as the nurse techs will say), we didn't know babies skin could be so sensitive, we didn't know we'd have to sponge bathe around that "ugly black thing" on their belly button until it umm... fell off (yuck!). We didn't know they could get such runny little noses and sad little coughs. We didn't know that rubber orangey-brown pointy thing with the ball on the end was used to get all the snotties out (last time I saw one of those I was probably 3 years old when my mom used it for Kayla, and I always thought it was a breast pump! ha ha!). We didn't know if a baby tugged on his ear, it might mean he has an ear infection. We didn't know there were three stages of baby food and how many ounces of milk your baby needs at certain stages of his life.


We didn't know that the smallest things your baby does would send you into laughter, we didn't know you could stare at a living being for such long periods of time, and never get bored. We didn't know we would be waiting on edge to catch him doing something new, we didn't know how good it would feel to rock him to sleep and have his sweet hands around our neck while we did. We didn't know how bad it would hurt us when he was sick, we didn't know how happy it would make us when he would grin from ear to ear with his eyes squinted so tight you thought that might be stuck together. We didn't know that hearing the words mama and da da would melt our hearts the way they did. We didn't know we could love someone SO much, until we met Ryder a year ago today.  And we didn't know it was possible to love him any more than we do, but each day, we are proved wrong. 
We learned all these things from scratch, and we learned them together as parents for the first time. We literally, literally knew NOTHING about being parents. We didn't have many friends who were parents, and the ones who were lived hours away, so we weren't a part of the everyday life of raising a child.  And to be honest, it was probably a little more difficult at first because of our cluelessness, but I wouldn't change it for anything, because we accomplished this together, as a couple, and we think we did a darn good job!  This first year has been such a learning experience, one that we will cherish forever.

And so this closes the book of Ryder's FIRST year of life. And what a wonderful year it has been. We love you soooooooooooooo much baby love, and are so looking forward to all the great years ahead.

Sweet Kisses,

Mommy and Daddy

2 comments:

  1. Sooo sweet, Brittany! :) I've loved following your blog, Ryder is such a little cutie! Congrats on one year! Y'all have done a great job and it makes me feel a whole lot better that y'all didn't know much about babies either starting out. Take care!

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  2. Happy Birthday to Ryder and Congrats on surviving your first year as a mom! Even though we are only 2 minutes apart? I have enjoyed reading you grow as a mom this past year! You are an amazing mom and Ryder is very lucky to have you!

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